If you get headaches frequently, you may wonder if your vision is contributing to the headaches and if glasses may help prevent or reduce them. There are circumstances in which glasses can reduce eye strain and fatigue which may lead to fewer headaches.
Types of Headaches
Headaches generally fall into one of a few categories. There are stress induced headaches, migraine headaches, and cluster headaches.
Glasses will rarely help with migraine headaches or cluster headaches as these types are often based solely on neurological changes.
If the stress that is inducing a headache is visual or eye related, then glasses may help with these type of headaches.
Feeling of Stress Induced Headaches
If your headaches are localized in a band pattern around the skull, such as where a hat would rest, then the headache is likely stress related.
Another common presentation of stress induced headaches is for the pain to be on each temple between the eyes and the ears.
These headaches are usually described as a boring, dull ache rather than a sharp, shooting pain.
If the pain is very severe, it is possible that there is a serious condition responsible for the headache and emergency care should be sought.
Most of the time, a stress induced headache will cause mild to moderate pain that is responsive to treatment options.
Treating Stress Induced Headaches
The treatment for headaches which are triggered by certain stressors is usually to remove or mitigate the stressors.
If caffeine induces a headache, cutting caffeine from the diet may be sufficient to prevent headaches.
However, if the stressor is internal such as a vision problem, there may need to be modifications made to reduce the stress.
This is where glasses and other options can be of assistance for headache treatment.
Signs that Vision is Causing Headaches
To determine if vision is factoring into the headaches, it is important to assess when and how the headaches occur.
If headaches begin after prolonged near work, performing a detailed task, or reading then it is possible that the visual stress of these tasks could be causing the headaches.
If headaches are worse at the end of the day and are particularly worse on days when lots of visually demanding tasks were performed it can indicate that the eyes are possibly the cause.
If eye strain is felt or there is pain behind, between, or around the eyes, the stress of the eye strain may be causing a stress induced headache.
How Glasses Can Help Headaches
If it is determined that vision is playing a role in the headaches, glasses may be prescribed to assist with the headaches.
If there is a need for glasses to see clearly at any distance, then simply providing clear vision can reduce the headaches.
For headaches that are associated with near work, reading glasses or bifocals may be used to ease the strain of the near work.
Similarly, reducing eye strain in any way — glasses, more breaks from tasks, or prism glasses — has also been shown to be effective in preventing and reducing headaches.
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